Nintendo

Mega Man Legends 3 [Cancelled – 3DS]

Mega Man Legends 3 (aka Rockman DASH 3 in Japan) is a cancelled action game that was in development by Capcom for the Nintendo 3DS. The game was announced in July 2010 and it was going to be created with the help of the fans, thanks to the MML3 Developer Room website:

Yes, the Developer Room, or as it’s more popularly known, the “Devroom” is a place where people interested in the upcoming Mega Man Legends 3 title for 3DS can convene to exchange ideas on the game’s development. We hold monthly Devroom events where members can submit their ideas for content, some of which will be selected by the game’s development team to actually be implemented in the game.

A playable Mega Man Legends 3 prototype was going to be released with the launch of the 3DS eShop download service, to let players to test the game and give even more feedbacks about how to develope it. Sadly, something went wrong and on the 18th july 2011, Mega Man Legends 3 was officially cancelled:

Unfortunately it was not felt that the Mega Man Legends 3 Project met the required criteria, and it is with regret that we must announce that the Mega Man Legends 3 Project has been cancelled, meaning that Capcom will not be releasing the Prototype or the full game. Additionally, updates of the Mega Man Legends Developer Room will cease as of today, though the North American Developer Room and its forums will remain open indefinitely.

The prototype was never released on the 3DS eShop, but we hope that in the future it could be at least leaked somehow.

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Mother (Earthbound) [Beta – NES / Famicom]

Mother (aka Earth Bound) is a RPG developed by Nintendo Tokyo Research and Development Products in cooperation with Ape, published only in Japan for the Famicom in 1989. Thanks to OKeijiDragon and GlitterBerri, we are able to have a look at an old beta video, in wich we can notice many little differences in the beta version of Mother.

Originally found on Nico Nico Douga titled, ファミマガ Video 【 1989年 5月号 (2/2) 】 (literally Famimaga Video May 1989), I stumbled upon this interesting Mother footage while searching for media on Mother 3 for Shat-Canned Legends. Same as the SMB3 footage.

The video shows the various differences of this prerelease version to the final version that my annotations go over. While there isn’t anything hugely major to show, the path from Ninten’s house looks to be mirrored, some game menu details are different, and the O on 0:07 is at the lower right corner of the title!

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Beetle Adventure Racing [Beta / Unused – N64]

Beetle Adventure Racing is a racing game developed by Paradigm Entertainment and released for the Nintendo 64 in 1999. Goomther noticed that in the GSCentral archive there is a cheat code that modifies the track you’re about to race on. Some of the values turned out to be beta / unused tracks and debug rooms. You can check them in the video below.

Beetle Battle was known as Bug Hunt in the beta version and had 9 ladybugs. The unused ladybugs are the Black Ladybug, the Grey Ladybug and the White Ladybug. The boxes used in Beetle Battle and some placeholder objects also exist as ladybugs, it’s unknown why they are there, but the developers just tested them (they forgot to remove them). There is a test turning track in the game that doesn’t have it’s own track. It has a bridge in the middle and a road that goes from the other one. The left part begins with it going with no turns. Then it turns right and left. The right part begins with the road then turning left into the bridge. The tracks you see in the menus also exist as their own models. The Inferno Isle menu track 2 has one difference: the small road to the left doesn’t exist. The beetles do have weird crappy textures on their back, however some don’t have it.

Thanks to Vanalker for the contribution!

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Kirby Squeak Squad [DS – Beta / Unused]

Kirby: Squeak Squad, known in Europe as Kirby: Mouse Attack and in Japan as Kirby of the Stars: Calling on the Dorotche Gang is a platform game developed by Flagship and Natsume and published in 2006 / 2007 by Nintendo and HAL Laboratory for the Nintendo DS. Mariosegafreak noticed a page of unused sprites on the Spriter’s Resource archive. Apparently the unused “Block Kirby” ability is a three-star Kirby wearing a hat from the beam ability. Not enough proof? Check the ability icons sprite sheet and you will find ‘block’. When trying to use a cheat code to activate it, Kirby just spits it out as if you pressed select/X.

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Super Mario Spikers [Wii – Cancelled]

Super Mario Spikers is a cancelled volleyball/wrestling hybrid game, which was being developed by Next Level Games; the makers of Gamecube title, Super Mario Strikers, and its follow-up, Mario Strikers: Charged. It was planned to be developed for the Nintendo Wii, but never made it far past the initial phases of conceptualisation.

In 2007, Mario Strikers: Charged was released on the Nintendo Wii and was met with both a positive reception and commercial success. Pleased with Next Level’s work, Nintendo allowed the developer a larger budget to tackle its next project with; as well as a greater level of creative freedom with their characters.

A former artist at Next Level Games spoke to us about the project:

“It was a wrestling/volleyball hybrid with a game show slant. It was never released and was financed as more of a reward to Next Level for doing such a great job on MSC”

The core development team at NLG didn’t begin fully working on Spikers until 2007, but the company’s artists had already been drafting new ideas for future Mario sports games throughout 2006, alongside work on Charged. Concept artists worked intermittently on the project until Strikers: Charged was nearing completion. It was around the end of the 2006, that Next Level’s heads settled on their new direction from early renders created in September.

Towards the very start of this project, the developer went back and forth on various names for the game. Its initially proposed title was simply ‘Mario Volleyball’; we assume to associate it with Nintendo’s other Mario sports titles at the time, such as Mario Golf and Tennis.

Although the game would eventually evolve into a hybrid of wrestling and volleyball, in the beginning, it started off solely as a relatively simplistic volleyball title with Mario characters. It was as more employees began to transitioning into Mario Volleyball that its mechanics and ideas became more fleshed out and the decision was made to add the twist of wrestling, among other things.

Once the project had begun to shift further and further from the realms of standard volleyball, the team opted to rename it ‘Super Mario Spikers’; a clear reference to their previous Mario sports productions. The significance of Next Level Games adding wrestling to one of their games like this will not be lost on those thoroughly versed in their back catalogue. Between 2004 and 2005, they were developing a WWE game with sci-fi and fantasy elements called ‘WWE Titans: Parts Unknown’.

An anonymous contributor close to the Spikers project described this game’s influence on it:

“Between the contact sport part of Strikers and some of the work that was done a couple of years before that on an unreleased wrestling game, it came as a pretty natural progression”

The wrestling mechanics drew upon NLG’s experiences with the title, which was a more stylised, cartoonish version of WWE to begin with. We have been fortunate enough to recover some of the animations made for the wrestling moves in Mario Spikers, thanks to Refurs, who discovered them in a reel put together by a former Next Level animator.

As we can see here, the combat system incorporated special moves made up of established wrestling maneuvers. For instance, in one clip, we can see a Yoshi performing a pile-driver attack. In another, Waluigi stomps on Mario’s stomach, who is grounded, laying on his back.

Unlike the Strikers games, which played out almost exclusively in a selection of large football stadiums set around the Mario universe, Mario Spikers had a slightly more varied collection of environments proposed for it.

In one of the level concepts, we can see a huge wrestling arena, the setting of a match between Mario and Wario. The massive crowds are populated by smaller Mario characters, including birdos, shy guys and the piantas from Super Mario Sunshine.

On the other side of the spectrum, some of the stages put forward took place in comparatively smaller areas and took inspiration from TV game show sets.

Each one of these was planned to sport its own unique environmental gimmicks, such a carnival wheel which would introduce random effects into play based upon where it landed.

Ultimately, Super Mario Spikers was never greenlit by publisher, Nintendo. The project was pitched to the company’s higher ups, but was declined because it was felt that certain aspects of its premise clashed with the company’s code of honour. This information comes to us from a trusted source, who was intimately involved with the project.

“It was a Japanese honor thing”

Work on Spikers ceased altogether in 2007 and Next Level Games instead went on to develop other Nintendo projects, including Punch-Out!! and a Metroid 3DS prototype. It is possible that a very early, playable prototype of the game was created for Next Level’s pitch, although any images of one have yet to be found.

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